A Man Could Get Killed
by Mayumi-H
Summary: She chuckled, and told him, "You're not with your wife, tonight." *Another Songbirds story *Doctor-less *Smuff


_Doctor Who and all associated character names and likenesses are owned by the BBC. Used here without permission._  
_**Smuff: rated M for Mature**, for depictions of sexuality between two consenting adults._

**"A Man Could Get Killed"  
**_A Songbirds story by Mayumi-H, AKA Bonusparts**  
**_

* * *

"We need some excitement."

Sally's words, spoken with that quiet authority he'd come to recognise as inarguable over the years, made Larry pause, briefly, over the guts of a recalcitrant remote control in the back room of their shop, _Sparrow and Nightingale's Antiquarian Books and Rare DVDs_.

"Our life's plenty exciting," he protested in a low mutter, among the wafting smell of his soldering. Looking up, he fixed her with a mock-penetrating stare. "For instance, will we once again fall asleep on the sofa in the middle of the Ten O'Clock News? Or, will we both finally make it past midnight for the first time in two years?" He furrowed his brows at her, intoning in a dramatic basso, "Only the Shadow knows!"

His humour had little effect. Pursing her lips (those soft, sweet lips he still looked forward to feeling press to his, even after three years of marriage and the arrival of a toddler, who was likely being spoiled to the gills by her grandparents even as they spoke), Sally gave a sigh through her upturned nose.

"We used to be spontaneous," she said, crossing to him. "We used to take chances."

"You mean, like, trespassing on deserted property and nearly getting ourselves killed, or zapped back in time, or whatnot?" He sniffed, and grinned without mirth. "Because, oh! Those days were brilliant!"

She clicked her tongue. "You know that's not what I mean." Setting down beside his work, she reached out and stroked her fingers through his perpetually uncooperative fringe. "Everything's just so...normal," she said, sounding more disappointed than frustrated.

"I like normal," he replied. "It's safe."

"But, it's the same thing every day. We work the shop until closing, then we go home, where we work some more: chores, cooking, cleaning, washing... The only different thing I've done in weeks is get my rings polished!" And she waved her naked left hand at him, with the pale band of flesh on her ring finger.

Dropping her shoulders now, she gave another sigh. "This is London. Fantastic, exciting things happen all the time. Don't you want to be a part of that?"

Larry blinked, curiously, at her. Then, he pushed back from the workbench and moved his hands around her hips, and pulled her into his lap with a gentle, crooked smile.

"Sally," he crooned. "I like who I am. I like what I do. And I like being with you." He squeezed her close, enough to make his barely-there whisper heard: "I love you. Katie, too. That's enough, for me."

She smiled, too...but, true to form, didn't let the subject drop.

"Just one night," she said. "And I promise, I won't pester any more."

There was no arguing with her when she set her mind to something. So, three hours past the shop's closing time, Larry found himself stuck between the thumping, pumping music, and the winding, grinding club crowd, shifting uneasily on his feet.

He hated clubs. Not that he'd ever actually been in a club before, but he knew the drill (from all those late nights at uni, spent sitting in front of a computer in his pants): self-possessed wankers trying to look cool with their coloured hair and coloured drinks, making believe they mattered. Even now, he stood at the bar, cramped between a party of four chatty, tarty girls who looked too young to be out so late on a school night, and a quartet of raucous jocks who wouldn't shut up about their precious West Ham.

Taking the last pull of his bitter, he wondered if this was really the "excitement" Sally had had in mind when she'd proposed this evening out.

"What are you drinking?"

Larry turned at the voice, spoken softly but still audible to him through the dancehall din. And it was a good thing he was leaning on the bar, or he might very well have been in danger of stumbling, as he felt his legs go weak at the sight.

With gold hair done in shiny, twisting curls, smoky eyes, and red wine lips full with a smile, she stunned him faster than any Type II phaser could have done. She was standing nearly at his hip, too, in a little black dress that hugged her curves in a way he hadn't seen since his wedding night, when his delightfully blushing bride had come to him in her clingy silk matrimonial slip and nothing else.

There was no demure blush to this woman's cheeks, though, nor bashful shuffle to her step. She moved up almost against him – her dress did, in fact, shift over her hips as she pressed her way between him and the football fans, who stopped to look and hoot but thankfully left it at that. Larry was reasonably certain he could take one of them, if he could land the first swing, though four was something else again.

Not that it mattered. She laid her hand over his fingers, looked up into his eyes, and moved her lips to speak to him, and him alone.

"Fancy another?" she asked.

He cleared his throat, to get his voice to work. "No. No, thanks. I'm all right."

She looked him up and down in an obvious once-over, and nodded. "You are that."

He laughed, and rubbed his hand over his eyes, to hide the warm flush he felt fill his face; such compliments always made him feel silly, awkward, embarrassed. No wonder he'd never pulled at uni.

She seemed to agree:

"You're rubbish at this."

Larry dropped his hand, blinking at her.

She still smiled, though. Nodding toward his hand, she informed him, "You're still wearing your wedding ring."

He looked at the gold band around his finger, too, and smiled, more easily, now. "Ah." He chuckled then, and shrugged. "What can I say? I'm madly in love with my wife."

She chuckled, too, but told him, "You're not with your wife, tonight."

He blinked again in surprise, then snorted brief laughter as he sized her up with a second glance, the same way she'd done to him. "I suppose not."

She nodded one more time, approving. Then, pressing herself hip to hip with him, she rose up so her face was very close to his.

"I've a hotel room not far from here," she said, from nowhere, though she made the words sound as natural as air. "I'd like you to come with me."

Without warning, his heart began to pound, louder than the music, louder than anything, save the sound of her voice as she added:

"I'd like to take you to bed."

It took a long minute for Larry to make enough spit to swallow; when he did, it was hard. That swallow wasn't all, either. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so quickly and so achingly aroused, by words alone.

Then, of a moment, it wasn't just words. Because she slipped her hand between them and tapped her nail against the metal lock of his belt, and, even though she wasn't directly on him, he still felt his trousers go uncomfortably tight.

"Will you come?" she asked, her lips still hovering near to his, her breath sweet with mint.

_Yes, almighty God, yes_, he thought, though all he could readily manage was a swift, dumb nod.

She didn't mind, stepping back only far enough to take his hand and pull him along, like a charmed animal, where he would have gone any way: after her.

They paused to retrieve her coat, which she swung around her with a supple wave of her arms and a smile. She didn't close it against the drizzly evening chill, though. He stopped wondering why when they passed through the club's doors and left the pounding bass beats behind:

Grasping the edges of his jacket, she pulled him to her, using both mouth and hands to strip him of his lingering inhibitions. Lost suddenly in this humming kiss, he stole his hands beneath her coat, clutching at her waist, her back, her hip, her breast, as though there were nothing between them, as though he had her back home, in his staid, made conjugal bed.

Unclasping her lips from his, she stepped back and took his hand once more.

"Come on," she said, tugging on his fingers.

This time, he moved beside her, shortening his stride to keep pace with her in her clicking heels, as they walked silently up one block, then around a corner, then up three more blocks, until they reached a revolving door stenciled with frosted letters.

"Here," she said, as she took the lead again, across the unfamiliar, empty atrium, past the clerk working at the night desk, toward the lift.

They waited as the number above the doors ticked down, and, once again, Larry felt his pulse start to thump. The cause this time was her perfume, a wafting smell of frangipani flowers, the same subtle scent Sally would dot behind her ears on the rare occasions when they'd step out for anything more formal than a pint at the pub or a new release at the cinema.

Beneath the high, arching ceiling of the atrium, the smell merely tickled at his senses; inside the smaller lift, though, it made his nerves itch. So much so that, even as the doors were still closing before them, he did what only dashing, handsome leads in cliché romances ever seemed to manage with a straight face, and kissed her, there, against the wall, with not just his lips but his tongue and hips and shoulders, as well.

Her breath came out a sigh, and she wilted a little in his arms. So he eased away from her, but only for a second. Because in the next, she took him back, pulling his head down to devour his mouth afresh. He registered the lift coming to a floating halt, and the doors opening – and then closing again – but he didn't dare tear his lips away from hers. He couldn't do, not when her kiss electrified him so.

At last, she chuckled against him.

"This is a bit dangerous."

"But exciting," he told her with a growing smile.

"I didn't come here to stay in the lift," she said, and, sashaying around him but never leaving his reach, she pressed the button for the third floor again.

The doors opened without hesitation. Without hesitation, they stepped through, down the dim, carpeted corridor, to the proper room. There, she paused for a moment with her hand hovering at the lock, and turned her head to look at him.

"Remember," she murmured, as though to warn. "You're not with your wife, tonight."

He felt his nostrils flare. "Just open the bloody door."

The lock clicked without her eyes ever leaving his, and, as soon as it did, he pulled her into his arms and pressed his mouth to hers. They kissed for a long second, there, in the corridor, before he pushed her back against the door. It swung open, and they stepped across the threshold together as a single form.

They dropped their clothes like Hansel and Gretel's trail of breadcrumbs: in a haphazard, stilted path from the door to the bed, leaving peppering kisses over each other's skin in place of each discarded piece of silk and cotton. Sliding her fingers down the centre of his chest, she reached between them again, and, this time, she did stroke her hand over his manhood, already bobbing eagerly for attention. It made him hum, and give a bump of his hips, so she did it again, more firmly and along the whole length of him.

She exhaled a desirous sigh against his lips, mumbling around his kisses, "Oh, big man. I want this."

He groaned at the delighting sensation of her grip, nearly to spite himself. Nothing else in the world made him feel so lucky and loved as being with Sally, for whom he'd always been gentle and solicitous when they'd taken to bed. Because Sally was splendid, deserving of a lover chivalrous and kind who'd treat her as the precious prize she was.

But, as he pushed further into her hand, Larry reminded himself: tonight was not about the tender familiarities of making love with his wife.

So, he offered this bold woman one more deep, thrumming kiss before sweeping his mouth across her cheek to her ear and breathing there the coarse words of his desire he had never, ever said to his brilliant and beautiful better half:

"I want to fuck you."

A hushed squeak blew from her lips. Then, she reached up with both hands and pulled his face to hers, nodding and humming between the sudden crush of their mouths.

"Yes. Yes!" she said, in a frantic mutter around the twining lap of their tongues.

Holding firm in their kiss, he pushed her to the bed with his chest and shoulders, moving up between her legs as he climbed on top of her.

She dropped to the pillows, her twisted curls falling across the down like painted tendrils of flowing starlight. Perching over her on his arms, he paused for a second to stare at her pale, soft face with its curious eyes and blush cheeks and wanting lips. He almost began to whisper to her the quiet adorations he sometimes said to Sally when they made love, but quickly stopped himself, instead telling her how much he wanted her with the first lunge of his hips.

Her look of anxious serenity turned almost amazed, her lips falling open with a groaning exhale. Then, he pulled back, and some strange mix of relief and regret crossed her face. And then, he pushed again, his full length, swiftly, and she let out a high, hushed, joyous cry that matched the shape of her mouth and the shine in her eyes, and the firm clench of her legs as she wrapped them around him.

Spurred by her grip and motion, Larry gave a grunt; it had never been like this. He'd never let himself be like this. But, minute after minute, as she matched his every stroke with one of her own, driving her hips against his and gripping with her thighs for leverage, he nearly cursed himself for always having wavered at the edge of audacity, instead of pushing forth.

She started to wheeze, so he dove for her mouth, muffling that high-pitched whine of sound with a kiss. But their tempo still quickened as she snapped her arms around him, scraping at his back with her short nails. He felt her go tense then, as she sucked her lips around his tongue, her whole body shuddering and seizing as she let out something like a whistling sob and turned deliciously wet of a sudden.

He gave an appreciative moan, though rather than slowing down, he kept his hammering pace, making her tremble and let loose another whimpering cry, only a minute after her first.

He tried to stay stoic and on task, but the clutch of her fingers in his hair and the quiver of her sweat-slick belly with her every gasp pushed him toward his brink, too. And he knew he shouldn't do, but he couldn't stop the spurt of syllables from between his lips as his body stuttered its rhythm and he came with a dizzying burst of exultation:

"-oh, God, Sally!"

For what felt a long time yet not long enough, he just breathed, and held himself still, and listened to the sound of their thumping hearts, two in-time.

When their sweat started to cool, he felt her lower her legs to either side of him, and he slipped out from her at last, moving into the space beside her.

Rolling onto her hip to face him, she gave a smitten little sigh.

"That was brilliant." Her torso shuddered again, this time with a laugh, as she once more drew her fingers down his chest. "You need to show this side of yourself to your wife more often."

He laughed a bit, too. "She craves excitement," he said, then swept his gaze away. "Unfortunately, I'm not very good at that."

She shimmied against him, cooing, "I beg to differ. You are quite exciting when you want to be."

He chuckled again for a moment. Then, he dropped his chin, to let his fringe fall in a shade before his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" she asked, stroking the hair from his face.

He gazed down at the pretty, delicate hollow of her neck. "I shouldn't have said your name like that."

Now, Sally gave a single, lilting chuckle, and tucked some of his hair behind his ear. Tilting his face up so he'd look at her, she smiled, gently. "I like hearing you say my name."

He sniffed. "It rather shatters the illusion, though."

She merely hummed, as she stroked at his hair again with the light, tender care he knew and loved so well. "I prefer this reality."

Larry pressed his lips together for a second, then asked, "Even if it's boring? A day in, day out routine, with no mysteries to solve, no monsters to vanquish?"

She did the same, in an embarrassed little frown. "I don't want monsters," she said with a slow shake of her head, before smiling once more. "And you and Katie are more than enough mystery, for me!"

At that, they laughed together for a marvellous moment. Then, he hushed them, as he cupped her cheek and kissed her. Or, maybe, she kissed him; he couldn't tell who began this trade of spit and sweetness.

It made no difference. Because with her next breath, she climbed on top of him and straddled his hips, to start their loving anew, this time with her setting their pace, in a most wonderful blend of temerity and tender care. It was long past midnight – the bells tolled three – before they drifted to sleep, exhausted but still wrapped around each other.

Daylight brought with it a return to propriety, and to routine, as they'd known it must. But they met it with a renewed and welcome ease and affection, that lasted far into the regular day.

Elton noticed it when he stopped by the shop after work, to make plans for the weekend's standing monthly gaming session; Trish did, too, when she popped in to pick up a special-order art book for Chloe's birthday. Even Sally's parents mentioned it, when they delivered Katie back to the house that evening, just before supper.

"Well," Jayne said, smiling over at them even as Katie began to describe in erratic detail her adventures at the beach. "Did you two enjoy the peace and quiet?"

Larry waited for Katie to finish telling the tale of helping her uncle Tim drive a boat, before looking back at Sally's mum.

"Oh, we managed to sneak in some excitement, as well," he said, and flashed his daughter a grin as he bounced her on his arm. Then, he glanced over at his daring, magnificent wife. "Didn't we?"

"We did," Sally agreed, pausing to to run her fingers over Katie's hair. Then, smiling with sweet sincerity, she added, "But, it's just as nice to have life back to normal."

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**  
This one is pure self-indulgence for my favorite couple. The shorter, simpler version of this appears as the vignette "Raving" in the collection "That So Works!"  
The title here is in homage to the film of the same name, in which the song "Strangers in the Night" features. If you're not familiar with the lyrics, they basically tell the story of my Songbirds' fantasy evening.


End file.
